During the 1970s, I couldn’t have told you what an urbanist was. Perhaps someone who studied the gum stuck on the bottom of park benches. Or maybe someone who documented the different types of sewer manhole lids. I had no idea.

For much of the past decade, anti-growth activists have been working overtime to block development in downtown Berkeley. But they’ve suffered a series of setbacks, losing key elections and city council votes. They haven’t given up, however, and are now pushing a November ballot measure […]

As a practicing urban designer, I’m not that different than any other person in the Bay Area in that I constantly think about how to improve my surroundings. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but we need to make some big changes so we can preserve what we love about living here. And in […]

Convincing people to make lifestyle-changing commitments to transit is a multi-faceted challenge. There are some bright folks who are offering creative solutions. But there may also be transit agencies which are failing to address the problem.

One can make two types of decision regarding transit use. Let’s call them “daily […]

The San Francisco Bay Ferry System exists to provide resiliency in the region’s transportation network, specifically for routes connecting San Francisco to the North and East. Since the Bay Bridge and the Transbay Tube are likely to be taken off-line for inspections and repairs […]

There’s an apartment building being debated in Berkeley, and it’s not a bad proposal. At 60 feet tall, it would be about as tall as other buildings facing Shattuck. 2701 Shattuck would include 70 studio apartments (PDF), ranging in size from 307 to 344 square feet. It’s close […]

In my last post, I wrote of touring transit-oriented developments (TODs) along the BART system. A friend joined me in the travel. Our goal was to gather insights that might be useful during the upcoming review of the proposed Petaluma Station Area plan by the Petaluma City Council. In […]

The Petaluma Station Area plan will be taken up by the Petaluma City Council on Monday, May 6. If you care about urbanism, it would be a good meeting to attend. And if you haven’t yet read the final draft plan or the concurrent changes to the Smart […]